This article is from 2015, and as a result, that is the last reported year.<p>I found a more up-to-date data set at <a href="http://federal-budget.insidegov.com/" rel="nofollow">http://federal-budget.insidegov.com/</a> which is consistent with the reported years, and includes both earlier years and an estimate for 2016. Unfortunately, it seems the deficit is growing again, with an estimate of -$616 billion for 2016.<p>It's also worth looking at earlier years -- nothing before 2009 was higher than $464 billion. Looking at a longer timeline, it seems clear that the general trend is towards a bigger deficit, but the impact of the subprime mortgage crisis means we can play games with statistics by framing our timeline around that year.<p>This is similar to the trick used by Ted Cruz to argue against climate change, by insisting on presenting the data on an 18-year timeline, so that it would start in 1997 and include that year's abnormally high temperatures caused by an El Niño weather pattern.<p><a href="http://www.cbsnews.com/news/fact-check-ted-cruzs-claims-about-climate-change-science/" rel="nofollow">http://www.cbsnews.com/news/fact-check-ted-cruzs-claims-abou...</a>
One can't understand this without first understanding<p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_debt-ceiling_crisis_of_2011" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_debt-ceiling_cri...</a><p>and<p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budget_Control_Act_of_2011" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budget_Control_Act_of_2011</a>